Our Customers April Upcycling Ideas For Kids

April Upcycling Ideas For Kids by Our Customers

Artists and friends are coming up with ideas for kids to help families at home and some are sending photos so that you can see what they have done.

Painting ideas to support families at home

From Laura P.

“I have tried your paints and they are perfect!

Here is an up-cycling project I created, with 2 grubby gym (or Yoga) mats.
I used a felt placemat for the leaf shape, painted on watered down acrylic and pressed it firmly down to print.
I did this twice on each print for extra depth of colour.
It would be an easy idea for children to do.”

Thank you for trying Outlines paints Laura!

Felt leaf mat used for upcyling the yoga mat

Upcycled leaf printed Yoga mat

With a little imagination you could adapt this printing with paint idea and if space is an issue, printing on top of colourful newpaper pages will work well. It would make an interesting record of the lockdown era in years to come too.
You would be able to see snipppets of news stories between the pattern!

From Nadia S.

“This picture underneath was originally an old textile piece, but I noticed moth holes appearing.
I dribbled yellow and minty green paint (with added sand) on the fabric and used a roller to blend it in.
Once dry I did this again with the yellow. I cut out trees from an old roll of wallpaper and glued them on with PVA.
Another idea for children!”

Thanks Nadia, recycling your own work can be a bit distressing but it can also be cathartic. Great to see it re-purposed for a helpful idea!

Your old artworks re-vamped

Paint a background and stick on trees

This idea can be adapted easily. Any old off-cuts of wallpaper that has pictures on it will be good for this.
You might have one with a flowery pattern or abstract shapes, or even an old piece of kids wallpaper with characters.
For the board, perhaps you have a tired-looking pinboard in the back of the cupboard.

Paint on Delivery Boxes

From ‘Dad Dave’

“Now that we are ordering online to avoid going to the shops we have all been painting on the cardboard boxes!
I cut them on the folds to make flat pieces and they’re really sturdy. The kids love it because they can stand them up around the house when they are done.
They make warning signs, reminding us to wash our hands etc. They put a STOP sign on the front door!
It says – STOP! Do you really need it? STAY IN! “

That’s great Dad Dave! Thanks for your ideas. We’d love to see photos:)

Painting Bits of Cloth

The artist at Wild Cherry Designs had left-overs from fabric painting that could be used for patchwork and following the same idea, the kids could paint squares of fabric and collect them to make their own bed cover.

Paint Fabric offcuts for patchwork

Children are being entertained and recyling as they do it – that’s a good result all round for Upcycling projects.